


Whiplash

by stateofintegrity



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Allusions to Conversion Therapy, M/M, idiots to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:20:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26331802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: Poor working conditions lead to angry words between the Corporal and the Major, who have to find their way back out of the labyrinth of their feelings.
Relationships: Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Whiplash

For three days and three nights, cold rain had fallen in ceaseless torrents. And just when it started to feel a little too much like water torture, the wind obligingly picked up and sent the sheets of water slanting sideways into doors, faces, the tops of boots. 

Stoves ran full blast and buildings stank of drying cloth and mildew. Mud ran down from the hills in impossibly fast streams; everyone was worried about bugging out. The creek overflowed; the latrine backed up. The cook in his infinite folly served soup (no one liked to drip

into a  _ wet  _ meal). 

And out of the hills, trucks still came rumbling with their grisly cargo: men filled with irreparable fragments of bone or organs that had to be jerry-rigged into a functioning science project of a system, the performing surgeon  _ knowing _ the man under his knife would never be the same, would endure complications the rest of his life. They used different metaphors in the privacy of their minds, but they all wondered, sometimes, if it wouldn’t just be kinder to  _ let go _ . And, furtively, in private conversations, they made deals with one another. “If it’s ever me - you ever open me up and find  _ that _ \- you just knick an artery and note time of death.” 

These brutal conditions caused different members of the unit to gravitate toward different forms of release. 

Mulcahy boxed until he forgot, momentarily, the week’s tally of the dead. 

Margaret - for only the second time in her Korean tenure - used her off hours to get really drunk. 

Maxwell Klinger stuck close to his favorite surgeon and they engaged in their usual back and forth, voices raised to be heard over rain on tent canvas. Neither realized that these barbs they exchanged were becoming quite cruel - until Charles fired one that left his best friend with his mouth open in shock. 

Charles was immediately prepared to apologize. He was exhausted, cold, overworked - the words had just  _ appeared.  _ The Major hadn’t even been aware he could think anything so vicious. 

“Oh?” Klinger said, getting his voice back after the shock. “How long have you been sitting on that one, sir?”

Charles tried to protest, but Klinger came closer, looked him right in the eyes. “I’ve carried litters for you, sir, driven you around, cleaned the blood off of you, helped you get to bed and  _ held food up to your fucking mouth  _ so you can do your job. And that, by the way, is on top of your constant insults about my intelligence, my coloring, and my being low class. It’s also on top of KP, sentry duty which scares me so bad I throw up almost every time, and office work that’s real hard for me, sir, being as I’m not as smart as you. And you know why I put up with it? Because I wanted to be your  _ friend _ ! For all I know I have a head injury that’s causing it, but  _ I actually like you _ , Major - and you just made it really fucking hard to keep wanting to.” He sighed then. “Goodnight, Charles.” 

It was self-defense. 

Charles kissed him purely so that he couldn’t say anything ever again because his words lived inside him now - and they’d been  _ devastating _ . 

_ Be quiet,  _ Charles thought, desperately as he conquered that sweet mouth,  _ just be quiet now. The pain will go in a decade or two…  _

Klinger drew back with a low, betrayed moan. “You did know, huh?” He swiped angrily at his mouth; bright circles stood in his cheeks, raspberry jam left to burn on an unattended stove top. “You knew and you still said that? Wow. You are a piece of work, sir.”

Charles  _ hated  _ when Max defaulted back to “sir;” it meant they were very much on the outs. 

“Maxwell, please… it’s so lonely here.” 

Here might have meant Korea, but his hand was over his heart. Their eyes caught, held, spoke. 

Klinger swore. “I hope you never fall in love with somebody like you,” he said then, giving in. “It’s awful.” 

“I loathe myself, Max. It shan’t be a problem. Now, shall I handle buttons or will you?” 

“Wouldn’t want you to strain your high class hands. Here.”

“You do realize that you are angrily undressing me?”

“You can hum if you want it to music.” Despite this energetic anger, this cheek, his eyes were admiring. They might even have been wet. With their darkness looking up at him for evidence, Charles could tell that Max had begun wanting him a long time ago. It was there in his touch, a history of longing, and even moving his hands from one place to another seemed to hurt him, to make him miss what he was giving up. 

“You should not allow this to happen,” Charles wanted to warn him. He could see the damage it was doing already. It was ripping Max apart to touch him with no hope of ever doing so again. His breath came in little, hopeless, whistling sobs and Charles had done little more than touch his hair. “Max… You cannot do this, darling. You can’t handle it.” 

“What? Pleasing a Winchester, sir?”

Charles kissed him silent again - it really was an effective trick - then bit at the corner of his mouth. “You cannot call me ‘sir,’  _ now _ , you frustrating creature, not when your hands have been beneath my clothes. As for the rest… you  _ feel _ too much. Should you not reserve such care for someone more deserving?”

“I fell for you. Believe me, I tried not to.” 

“Your flattery leaves something to be desired, even if I commend your attempts to curb your feelings.” 

_ I bet you do! Not good enough for you, huh, Major? Not nearly good enough. Maybe I’m not. Maybe I never  _ **_can_ ** _ be. But I can make you feel good, I bet. Couldn’t  _ **_that_ ** _ be enough? Just for a minute?  _

He looked, Charles reflected, quite disgusted. “I shoulda known you’d get in your own way with this. Go back to being mad and taking it out on me with your tongue. Whatever I’m feeling… I’m not your responsibility, Major.”

This was simply too much to bear. Charles grabbed the pretty Corporal and dragged him into his lap, hands on his hips, eyes locked with his. “Let us get something quite straight between us, Maxwell. I am not Hawkeye Pierce and you are not some nurse I sweet-talked into my bed.”

“Of course not. You would have had to actually say something  _ nice _ to me. We both know that would probably kill you. Of course, Hawk doesn’t  _ mean _ the stuff he says, so maybe that would help.” 

“Maxwell, what I said earlier  _ was _ cruel, I confess.”

“Poetic, too,” Klinger sniped. 

“Max!” 

“What? All the sudden I’m not allowed to talk back to you? You want me to just keep quiet and spread my legs?” 

He did want that. God help him, he did. And then he would force the younger man  _ out  _ of his silence by pleasuring him so well that Max  _ screamed _ . 

But he couldn’t bear these misconceptions rising up like walls between them. Well, maybe he would have to talk through the keyhole, given Max’s all-too-apparent anger, but he could, at least, tell the truth. Maxwell deserved to hear it. He stood, momentarily displacing the man in his arms, crossed the room, secured a small tin and returned to the bed. 

“Condoms?” Klinger guessed. 

The very word made Charles’ stomach bottom out. He had never even considered using one with Max; being separated from him that way would have been a sin - and Charles didn’t even  _ believe  _ in sin. “Letters,” he choked out. His voice was hoarse. “If you can talk back to me - and yes, I hope you always do, even when I am inside of you - then I can read to you.” 

“I’d rather you,”

Charles put a hand over his mouth. “I know. I  _ will _ ,” and  _ well  _ that voice promised, “But not until you understand.”

Klinger’s brow furrowed; his bright eyes were clouded. What was there to understand? Charles didn’t like him all that much (beyond liking to argue with him) but he’d readily use him for a quick fuck. It was a deal many others had offered the pretty Corporal; he had accepted, this time, because it was  _ Charles _ doing the asking. Hopefully whatever sensations the surgeon conjured in his body would outlast the pain his words had stirred up, would distract him from it with a more pleasant kind of ache. It was wrong, probably, but he would settle for it if it was all he could get. 

Choosing one of the missives, Charles scanned the lines, then handed it over, indicating where he should look. He found another as Klinger familiarized himself with Honoria’s handwriting, as he moved his dark eyes over the words. But Klinger didn’t take the next page he extended. 

“Major? What’s going on? I don’t understand.” 

“Honoria is my sister. You know this, yes?” 

Klinger glared. “Don’t treat me like I’m stupid, sir. Not for something this important.” 

“Damn it, Max! Why do you default to the belief that every time I speak to you I wish to denigrate you in some way!? I do  _ not _ think you stupid. I never have. I can probably find you a letter where Honoria calls you bright and clever, too - she’s quite the fan of the way you trounce me when we argue - and for heaven’s sake and all that is holy, can you just  _ once _ ,  _ given that you are in my lap with my pants unzipped and barely your skirt between us  _ call me by my damn name!?” 

“Charles,” he said simply - then went completely wide-eyed when the physician shivered. Klinger gripped his shoulders. “Where is all this coming from!? Why didn’t you let me know!? Do you know how much better this place coulda been!?” 

“I had reasons,” he began. 

“Real stupid ones, I bet.”

“Doubtless, some of them are.” 

Klinger heard something in his tone that he didn’t like and instinctively got closer. “Major?” 

“It’s alright, Max. I’ll tell you of it - I owe you the whole truth of me - but I’ve hurt you quite enough for one night without making you look at an exhibit of my scars.”

“I’ll trade you.” Klinger held his head up, looked brave. “Baby, I gotta know. If you sound like that…”

“Baby?”

“Major baby,” he corrected with a grin. “You can handle that, right?”

“I suppose, Corporal… darling.”

Klinger threw his head back at that. “That voice of yours… can’t believe you’ve been holding out on me, Charles.”

The Major drew him in and held tight. “You are too young for me, Maxwell. Too pretty. I… I convinced myself that you could never want me - God knows you would be better off without me,” 

Max stopped him, his eyes flashing with anger. “Not to me, Charles.”

“What?”

“Not to me,” he repeated. “Maybe I can’t get in your head and make you stop saying awful things about yourself, but I won’t listen because none of it’s true. So go back to telling me how pretty I am or tell me how hard you’re gonna make me come for you, but don’t run yourself down.” His eyes were conviction-bright now and Charles found he could not argue with a man who both loved him and looked at him like that. 

He kissed his fingers instead, squeezed them. 

“At least I get all the cracks you were making now,” Max admitted. “You weren’t insulting me. You were trying to convince  _ yourself _ .”

Charles gestured at the two of them, their proximity. “It was not a smashing success.”

“Good.” 

“Maxwell, what are you doing?” 

“There’s hard stuff coming up. I can see it in your eyes. Stuff you’ve been carrying a long time that you need to put down. Figured you ought to be comfortable while you tell it.” 

Beads of sweat formed at his temple. By moving aside the lace that imprisoned him, Klinger had guided him between his thighs and was sheltering him there, keeping him warm, shifting infinitesimally to tease him with the promise of friction. 

“Beloved…”

“Shoulda called me sweet stuff from the start, Major. I would’ve understood that a whole lot easier than your fancy insults. Now, out with it. I’m here and I’ve got you, okay?” 

“You had me when our eyes met for the first time, Maxwell… and you scared me far worse than war.”

“Thanks a bundle, Major.” His smile was wry. 

But his expression changed, rapidly cycling through a dozen emotions as Charles spoke of things that he had endured and how those things had taught him to hate himself and to fear the affection he’d seen in Max’s dark eyes. 

“My dear, are you crying?”

Klinger was shaking, rather; the tears were still being kept back for Charles’ benefit. “I didn’t know.” His tone was anguished. 

“You are the only one, besides the perpetrators, who does.” He chose the word quite deliberately, pushed back against images of syringes, restraints. 

“Honoria?”

“She was very young.”

…  _ I owe you the whole truth of me…  _

“Max, what are you doing?” 

“It’s the only gold I’ve got on me, Major, but if I wait you’ll change your mind.” He formed the bit of ribbon into a crude circle and slid it home. 

“You are… proposing?”

“Yeah. And if you hafta to ask, I’m not doing a great job, either.” 

“Eager as I am to accept,” he played with the shining fabric band, “don’t you think,”

Klinger shot him a warning look. “Major, you’re not gonna fuck this up with some nonsense about which one of us is wearing pants, are you?”

Charles actually laughed. “Maxwell, when have I ever done less than praised your skirts and your stitching?”

The Corporal’s head tilted - his classic gesture for uncertainty or confusion. 

“You thought I was  _ mocking _ you?” He sounded quite horrified at this. 

“Everyone else was!” Maxwell defended himself. “You made fun of everything else!”

Charles bowed his head for a moment. “It has never been my intention to hurt you. Certainly not over  _ that _ . And if you will have me, if you truly do want me, I will make it up to you, dearheart.” He tasted the cruel words he’d spoken, hoped Maxwell realized, now, that their poisonous blooms had been fed in a soil of jealousy. 

Klinger was still caught on something else, trying to riddle out what he thought that Charles had alluded to but had not exactly  _ said _ . Unfortunately, the deep importance of the issue at hand made him feel very much like someone had crafted a wreath of barbed wire and briar thorns and wrapped it around his heart; every beat drove the bleeding muscle into a nest of pain. It was hard to speak through the hurt, especially since he was probably completely wrong.  _ You’re a  _ **_thoracic_ ** _ surgeon,  _ Klinger wanted to say to the man before him,  _ so please make this stop long enough for me to find out what you mean _ . 

“You look quite terrified. You wish to retract your proposal?”

Klinger shook his head, the gesture quick and impatient, his hair flying around his face. 

“No.” He allowed Max to see the relief in his eyes. “Alright, love, please instruct me, then, as to how to remove that look from your face.” Klinger’s eyes were too bright, his lips pale. 

“I need to know…” He stopped and his breath shuddered audibly and the thoracic surgeon looked nervous, looked like he wanted to reach for a stethoscope. He tried again, repeated those four words. 

“You need, first, to be made to feel quite safe, I think,” said Charles, then. And his hands changed before Klinger’s dazed eyes; they came to embody something nameless and inexplicable that only became activated in times of dire need. Klinger didn’t feel those hands settle at his waist, but they must have, because they went through the motions that transferred the frightened Corporal to the center of a bunk. He registered Charles’ pillow - red velvet, he’d always assumed it had been a gift from a girlfriend - registered the scratch of the brown army blankets. And then they were hidden away from everything, a dark coverlet rigged between them and the rest of Korea. 

“Nice trick, Major.”

“Thank you. Regretfully, it is quite useless against Pierce, but, given that he is on rounds, we should be safe enough. Now, if you would be so kind, there was, I believe, something you wished to ask me.”

Klinger wished he knew how to  _ insulate _ the words somehow, to make it not hurt, no matter what happened. He’d never wanted to be a soldier. He wasn’t made to be this brave. “You said… I mean…” he sighed, made a frustrated sound. “You weren’t making fun of my clothes?”

“Never.”

Comforting - but not exactly helpful. “So what does that  _ mean _ ?” He could read nothing in those eyes. “Look, you told me something nobody knows about, right?”

He had and was glad of it. It had not only freed him somewhat, it had gotten him the ribbon wrapped around his finger. “You wish to tell me something, Maxwell?”

“Yeah. But it doesn’t hafta matter. I mean, you should know, but you can forget it if you want.”

Charles smiled at him - a gentle type of smile Max had never seen before. “I have never seen you shy before. It is charming.”

“Not for me it isn’t!”

Charles chuckled. “Let me help, darling. It is all I have ever wished to do and what I have so rarely done, but you can trust me.” 

“It might make you change your mind.” He nodded to the band around his finger. 

“About you? I doubt that very much.” Then he drew him close, bent his head so that Maxwell might speak as softly as he wished. “Whisper it if you must, darling.”

He did. And in doing so, he told someone the truth - his whole truth - for the first time in his whole life. Then he sat back and waited to be kicked out of the tent and out of the heart of the proud Major he hadn’t known he had won. 

But Charles just held his eyes, his gaze steady and open. Accepting. “I know,” he finally replied. 

“What do you mean you _ know! _ ?”

“Certainly there are specifics you will have to fill in. You shall have to teach me, for instance, what I may call you and when it is appropriate, but surely you don’t despair of my ability to learn.”

“Harvard and all.” His mouth was so dry. 

“Right. You look worse, Max. Why?”

“I didn’t know how much I cared.” He was still whispering. “The clothes, Major?”

“You are in a skirt right now, dear girl.” (What better time to experiment?) “I have no complaints.” He stroked up his legs. “Except that I fear you will become chilled in this weather.” 

He whined high in his throat, helpless. “But that’s  _ here _ .” Then the words registered, ricocheted. “Girl?”

Charles nodded. “If you want to be.  _ When _ you want to be, even. In dresses or out.” He laughed when he saw his eyes. “Don’t look at me like that. Who do you think _ I  _ fell for, exactly?”

“Nobody knows, Major.”

“No one needs to, pet.” 

“Nobody believes me.”

“Maxwell, you were in a dress when I arrived here. I saw your eyes. I knew then.” 

“And you’re still saying yes? You don’t want me to,” he swallowed broken glass, tasted his own blood, “change?”

“In what manner?”

He told him about the procedures being done in other countries, the options people had softly pointed him toward, meaning well.

“You wish to be other than you are, Maxwell?”

“No.”

“Then be mine and dress however you want.”

It was the proposal he would have written for himself if he could have - and the soft, proud smile that Charles wore suggested that he knew it. 

“I’m sorry about what happened, Charles. The stuff you told me.”

“I am sorry that those old shadows ever came between us.” He leaned forward, caught that trembling mouth. “I would like to hear that proposal now. That I might have the opportunity to answer it, you know. Should you still wish to make it?” 

Gathering his skirts under him, Max slid from the cot to kneel, keeping one of Charles’s hands clasped between his. “Major?”

Charles held back a groan. “Even in this, darling?”

“You like it.”

“Only insofar as it permits me to, ah, give you orders.”

Max had never heard  _ that _ tone before; he certainly hadn’t considered what Charles was hinting at. “Sounds fun, sir, but if the Major could listen up a minute?” Officers, honestly. 

A teasing salute gave him the go-ahead. 

“Thank you for trusting me, Charles. If I’m the only one who knows you all the way through, it seems right to me that I should be the one who gets to protect you, too. Charles Emerson Winchester III, want to break army regulations with me?”

“Do not forget civilian law.”

“And that? And keep me my whole life?” His smile broke out, trembled. “All of me?”

“Maxwell Q,” he stopped, looked befuddled. “I find that I do not know what your middle initial stands for, dear one.”

“al-Qurḥah,” Klinger supplied. “Which I have no doubt that your family is going to just  _ love _ .”

Charles ignored him. “It was my assumption that it stood for ‘cute,’ to be quite honest with you.”

Klinger blushed and hated himself for doing it. “That’s terrible, Major.”

“Yes, but it pleases you immensely.” 

Klinger didn’t deny it. 

“Maxwell al-Qurhah Klinger the one and only, it is my express and only wish to spend my life cherishing you.”

Klinger let himself be drawn up and into his arms. “Didn’t see this coming,” he teased. “I was damn mad at you when we came in here.” 

Charles’ eyes shined with a once in a lifetime happiness (or so Maxwell believed in that moment; he would see that gentle glow for the rest of his life - every time his Major looked at him). “Allow me to make it up to you?”

Outside, the rain softly came to an end. 

End! 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
